Masterpiece in Red
by xfmoon
Summary: A story about children and finger paint.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own The Mentalist, in fact I don't even own any red finger paint.

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Two deep blue innocent eyes went wide in anticipation when the kindergarten teacher placed a row of different colored finger-paint on the table in front of the group of apron clad children. It didn't take long before paint was everywhere and the teacher had her hands full of screaming kids with paint on their clothes and in their hair.

_Finger-paint_: always a winner, it makes the children happy, but what a mess it creates in its wake.

The little guy with the blue eyes went immediately for the red color, snatched it away before anyone of the others could put their fingers in it and ruin it by mixing in another color. It didn't make him very popular with the girls that all wanted to paint something or other red, roses, princess dresses or the like. And between_ "No Peter don't put your fingers in your mouth" _and _"Karen stop painting Sarah's ponytail"_ he got a _"Please share the colors with the others."_ And so he relinquished half of the paint and made peace with the girls. The boys were too busy mixing as many colors as possible until it all turned into a big black mess which made the smallest cry. Some painted their families or pets or more abstract pieces... of art.

The little boy dipped two chubby fingers into the paint and felt it congeal slowly on the edges and in the ridges of his hand. He was fascinated, spellbound, drawn to the color without knowing exactly why. He dipped his fingers again, and let the excess paint drip back down into the container._ Splash._ The small pear formed drops landed in the liquid and propelled even smaller drops up and out. Itself sinking incredibly fast into the little red lake, being absorbed so quickly that the drop within seconds no longer existed as an independent thing. It was now part of something bigger.

He put his fingers down on the paper and let them slide slowly, almost longingly, in a clockwise motion, feeling the roughness of the paper and the friction as he moved his hand round and round. A squeal - from the girl opposite him, brought on by someone's clumsy attempt at reaching across the table resulting in a tipped over neon green container and a ruined picture of a yellow dog - made him lose his concentration and remove his hand from the paper which resulted in a circle that wasn't quite finished. He had wanted it to be perfect, a perfect round red circle. Now the little gap at the top was glaring at him, taunting him, mocking his imperfections. He narrowed his eyes a little and dipped his fingers yet again, then made three somewhat horizontal lines inside the circle, two short ones at the top and a longer one at the bottom, two eyes and a mouth. He'd made a happy red smiley face.

Proud he lifted the drawing up, getting some red fingerprints smudged on the edges, but he didn't seem to care now that he'd finished his masterpiece. He walked over to the teacher and showed her just how talented he was. She took it from him and praised his simple design and hung it up to dry alongside the rest of the kids' paintings. Then she ushered him and the others in to the bathroom to get at least a little cleaned up before all the parents arrived to pick them up.

When his mother came, it was with much anticipation that he presented her with the picture. The wet paint had run down the paper making irregular vertical lines fall in and around the face. Ruining his masterpiece. His mother didn't mind, she said it added character to it, but he was still sad about it though. _"We'll stop for some ice cream on the way home, how does that sound?" _Asked his mother and helped him put on his jacket and shoes. He lit up, the painting half forgotten. He loved ice cream, especially vanilla.

She reached for his hand, smiling her beautiful smile. He took it and watched as some of the red color on his hand rubbed of on his mothers delicate fingers. He felt a previously unknown tingle surge through his body, like this somehow made her different, more precious. And he wished his mother would just stay like this forever, young and beautiful. The red smudges had marked her, and somehow pulled and displaced part of her from reality, transforming her into being the same as the art he'd just created. But she would by far be his masterpiece.

He looked up at her and could have sworn her smile had started radiating in a faint red glow that along with her eyes and face and the redness on her fingers slowly spread to the rest of her body. Her voice was as warm as the hue of her skin when she said:

_"Come on Patrick, let's go home."_

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**A/N:** Okay I have no idea where I was going with this. I feel like it ended up being weird, sorry.

I blame the promo for this fic, it was all that _'it's time to wipe that smile off his face'_ which suddenly seems kinda weird and backwards considering what happened.

And believe it or not but I actually wrote this before the premiere, just didn't have time to proofread and upload it. Finger paint will never really be quite the same after watching that!


End file.
